Folk Songs (Berio)

[2] The Folk Songs cycle was commissioned by Mills College in California and first performed there by a chamber orchestra directed by Berio in 1964 with Berberian as the soprano soloist.

By the time of its first performance, the Berberian–Berio marriage was nearing its end, but their artistic partnership continued; they subsequently collaborated on works such as Sequenza III, Visage, and Recital I (for Cathy).

"Black Is the Colour (Of My True Love's Hair)" and "I Wonder as I Wander" were both written by the Kentucky folk singer and composer John Jacob Niles.

Berio's suite opens with the viola instructed to play "like a wistful country dance fiddler", free of bar lines and rhythmically independent of the voice.

In the French song "Rossignolet du bois", accompanied only by the clarinet at first but later by the harp and crotales,[2] a nightingale advises an inquiring lover to sing his serenades two hours after midnight, and identifies the "apples" in his garden as the moon and the sun.

A cello echoing the improvisation at the opening of the suite introduces "Lo Fïolairé", in which a girl at her spinning wheel sings of exchanging kisses with a shepherd.